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With the Bots Back, Should I.....

Clearly the bots are back on my realm and others, because Ore is at a low that I have not seen since 4.3 hit and gems are dropping like crazy. My question is, should I buy these while they are low and just hold onto it all or is this a deal where the market will continue to fall for a long time? Any advice is appreciated.

What I have noticed is that the bots will post in waves. The price of elementium on my server bottoms out around 60g when they dump their stock, and rebounds to around 75g afterwards.

If you start to notice a similar pattern, don't be afraid to jump in on the low end. If you are worried about the price dropping lower, only buy as many stacks as you can shuffle and move quickly. For example, I used to buy hundreds of stacks of ore if the price was right and didn't think twice about it. Now, I buy 50-100 stacks and am shuffling it as fast as i can so I can sell it off before the price drops any lower.

Your other option is to sit on the sidelines and see if the market reaches an equilibrium. But between demand for enchants and gems dying off, people trying to unload with MoP approaching, and everyone and their sister trying the shuffle now that ore is so cheap, I doubt prices are going back up.

I am interested to see if the bots start getting into the herb market at all, now that every herb on my server is the same price or more expensive than the ores.

What I have noticed is that the bots will post in waves. The price of elementium on my server bottoms out around 60g when they dump their stock, and rebounds to around 75g afterwards.

If you start to notice a similar pattern, don't be afraid to jump in on the low end. If you are worried about the price dropping lower, only buy as many stacks as you can shuffle and move quickly. For example, I used to buy hundreds of stacks of ore if the price was right and didn't think twice about it. Now, I buy 50-100 stacks and am shuffling it as fast as i can so I can sell it off before the price drops any lower.

Your other option is to sit on the sidelines and see if the market reaches an equilibrium. But between demand for enchants and gems dying off, people trying to unload with MoP approaching, and everyone and their sister trying the shuffle now that ore is so cheap, I doubt prices are going back up.

I am interested to see if the bots start getting into the herb market at all, now that every herb on my server is the same price or more expensive than the ores.

They definitely are on my server, at least in Whiptail and Cinderbloom. 12g/ink was common before the bots hit, now it's anywhere from 3-5g/ink.

- This wave of bots will be banned, and the prices of all goods affected by botting will rise and eventually restabilize.
- Gem sales are still going strong, despite the expansion winding down.
- Cata ores will still be needed to level jewelcrafting and blacksmithing in MoP, so you can flip them for an enormous markup once everyone's moved out of the cata zones.

Something I noticed too is that despite the mats for glyphs and enchants crashing, the final products have barely been affected, if at all.

You could stockpile now and hope that prices will rise again (they almost certainly will), and worst case scenario, hold onto the ores until MoP and resell them for profit.

If you can buy the ore, shuffle, and make a profit, buy it, buy it all.

The real question is what is your price point. If ore is at the price, buy it, process, profit.

I think this is over-simplifying it a bit. There is more analysis that could be done. For instance:
If you think you can sell your excess stockpiled ore for 60g today and buy it back for 35g in a week, sell don't buy.
If you think the gem/enchanting mats markets are going to crash to the point where it's not worth your time to shuffle the ore, sell don't buy.

People seem to forget that at the end of the previous patch ore was sitting at 19-25g on most servers, because there was little demand for gems and enchants. There is no reason to think it won't go back there. To ignore where the market is going is an easy way to lose money on the shuffle.

People seem to forget that at the end of the previous patch ore was sitting at 19-25g on most servers, because there was little demand for gems and enchants. There is no reason to think it won't go back there. To ignore where the market is going is an easy way to lose money on the shuffle.

I shied away from both the herb and ore sales for this very reason. However, I did catch a ton of whiptail at 24g a stack on the Alliance side, bought it all, threw it in a guild tab and plan to sell it when the bot ban happens... Until then, I found that moving it little by little to horde side has been nice, since it still goes for 80-90g a stack.